That's not, however, what the column is about. It's about hard times coming and whether we have the stuff to handle hard times. It's about dispensing with "women and children first." Speaking of the cowardice of the captain and crew of the Concordia, he writes:

After similar scenes on the MV Estonia a few years ago, Roger Kohen of the International Maritime Organization told Time magazine: “There is no law that says women and children first. That is something from the age of chivalry.”
If, by “the age of chivalry,” you mean our great-grandparents’ time.

And:

We are beyond social norms these days. A woman can be a soldier. A man
can be a woman. A seven-year-old cross-dressing boy can join the Girl
Scouts in Colorado because he “identifies” as a girl. It all adds to
life’s rich tapestry, no doubt. But I can’t help wondering, when the
ship hits the fan, how many of us will still be willing to identify as a
man.

Concluding with an aphorism for our day:

For soft cultures in good times, dispensing with social norms is easy. In hard times, you may have need of them.

It's increasingly obvious only hard times could possibly bring them back, so I hardly know what to wish for. I have no stomach for the upheaval it would take to wake us all up.